ALBANY -- Traffic studies are a waste of time, sharrows are what cities create when they don't support bike riding and roads like Central Avenue's suburban stretch are too far gone to commit many resources to make them more walkable.

Those are among the provocative views of Jeff Speck, a city planner and author of "Walkable City," which contends downtowns can "save America, one step at a time."

Speck is coming to Albany May 22 to 23 for the Albany Roundtable's annual meeting of civic and neighborhood leaders and for a workshop for planners, elected officials and interested residents the next day. He said his work is meant especially for the small to midsize cities where most people live.

"They tend to have good bones, as in small blocks, relatively narrow streets," he said.

Like Albany, he said, many "broke their bones," by building interstates like 787 or superblocks like Empire State Plaza, but the structure is still there.

During a previous visit to Albany, he walked the plaza. It represents much of what Speck opposes.

"I found it to be powerful but deeply flawed," he said. He called it "beautiful sculpture" that pays no attention to making the area hospitable to walking.

But Albany has neighborhoods that are walkable that can attract new residents with focused investment, he said.

"Albany is the kind of city the book was written for," he said.

Speck, who is based in Washington, D.C., and is former director of design at the National Endowment for the Arts, bluntly dismisses traffic studies as likely to create the problems they seek to solve. Steps taken to reduce congestion make it easier to drive, causing more people to do so and eliminating any benefit, he said.

Speck recognizes governmental resources are limited. He advocates what he calls "urban triage": picking neighborhoods that are already walkable and connecting or improving them.

Many cities and towns have created streets like Central Avenue, multi-lane roadways with thick commercial development. While it makes sense to reduce pedestrian accidents, he argues such roads are too far gone to be where communities invest money in walkability.

"This is your pure, worst American street you find all across America," he said. "There is very little hope for a street like this. It's failing in every regard. I don't think it's within our capacity as a nation to make places like these walkable."

Cities would be better off focusing on creating affordable housing that encourages people not to live there, he said.

Mention that Albany has begun installing shared bike lane arrows, known as sharrows, along some streets, and Speck is again dismissive.

"A sharrow is barely a bike lane," he said. "Sharrows are what cities that have no commitment to bike lanes do."

He advocates separated bike lanes to encourage cycling.

Speck is optimistic about the future of small cities like Albany because the younger generation grew up in a culture in which television programs like "Seinfeld" and "Friends" celebrated city living rather than the suburban homes of "The Brady Bunch" era.

"We're already seeing the impact," he said. "These kids grew up in a mass media culture that celebrated the urban."

Only 13 percent of children now walk to school, he said.

"There is this continuous trend of these kids being chauffeured," he said. "They are sick of being in cars. My generation embraced driving because it was kind of new and cool. What it means for cities is nothing but good stuff. There are all these people who want to live and work downtown. The question isn't whether people are moving into cities. The question is: Are they moving into yours?"